On behalf of the Nobel Foundation, I
welcome you to this year's Prize Award Ceremony. We would
especially like to welcome this year's Laureates to the Nobel
Festivities in Stockholm. We congratulate you for your important
achievements in different fields. You have thereby increased
collective human knowledge and contributed to the respect and
prestige that the Nobel Prize enjoys. Earlier today the Nobel
Peace Prize was awarded in Oslo to Jimmy Carter, former president of
the United States.

Today's science is highly international in
character. Sometimes this is portrayed, like other forms of
international exchange, as some new phenomenon within the
framework of the all-embracing, but not always meaningful concept
of "globalization." In reality, international scientific exchange
has a very long history. In the West, it goes back to the culture
of antiquity. Looking at the first centuries of modern science,
the 17th and 18th centuries, scientific progress was driven by
successive contributions from scientists in different countries.
The academies that emerged during this period not only
coordinated the researchers in their own nation, but became
important intermediaries for international scientific
cooperation.

The man who came up with the idea of
establishing scientific academies was the statesman and
philosopher Francis Bacon. He understood that the new scientific
breakthroughs of the early 17th century could be utilized to
improve the human condition on earth. The pacesetter was the
Royal Society in London, which soon after being founded in 1660
began to publish a scientific journal, Philosophical
Transactions. In this way, it established an ethic and
tradition for the announcement of scientific advances. The
publication of scientific findings became a method for scientists
to gain recognition as the originators of discoveries and ideas.
At the same time, the results they presented could be subjected
to questioning or confirmation. Even today, this review mechanism
plays an important role in discovering incorrect results and
statements.

Scientific values and democratic principles
have a lot in common. In science, transparency and honesty are
highly valued. Dissenting views are considered a natural element
of the process that leads to new knowledge. This is a
never-ending process. The same values apply in a democracy.
Shimon Peres, the
Israeli statesman and Nobel Peace Laureate, has expressed this as
follows:

"Science and lies cannot coexist. You don't have a scientific
lie, and you cannot lie scientifically. Science is basically the
search for truth - known, unknown, discovered, undiscovered - and
a system that does not permit the search for truth cannot be a
scientific system. Then again, science must operate in freedom.
... So in a strange way, science carries with it a color of
transparency, of openness, which is the beginning of
democracy ..."

International scientific cooperation has developed vigorously
over the past few centuries and exists today on a previously
undreamed-of scale, thanks to new methods of communication. At
the same time, intensive international competition is taking
place in a number of research fields where significant
breakthroughs can be anticipated. Take as examples the fields of
bioscience, information technology and nanotechnology. Here, too,
there are superb precedents, for example the competition that
took place in the 18th century to be the first to identify a
method for determining longitude. Quite a few impressive
observatory buildings in the capitals of Western Europe are
relics of this race.

Today it is increasingly evident that a
country's investments in science are a good indicator of its
future growth and productivity. The mathematician, philosopher
and author Bertrand Russell
expressed it as follows in the mid-20th century: “Almost
everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier
centuries is attributable to science.”

In a global perspective, world research and
development is heavily concentrated in the "G7" countries. In
this group, the United States alone accounts for more than half.
And the gaps are tending to widen, because the countries with the
largest relative research and development efforts – the
U.S., Japan and certain smaller EU countries – are stepping
up their programs faster than other countries. But ambitious
investments in China and especially South Korea in recent years
demonstrate that this relative positioning can change. Meanwhile
it has also become increasingly clear what a crucial role basic
research plays for the entire innovation system, and thus for the
"knowledge-based economy" and for the potential of various
countries to attract business investments. There is thus reason
for many countries to critically examine their support to basic
research.

In order to take advantage of the world's
scientific and technical knowledge base, every country needs to
build up its own scientific competency. This fact is especially
relevant to developing countries. Both on an individual and an
institutional basis, researchers have begun to build up
relationships with their colleagues in poor countries, in order
to find ways of applying research to sustainable development.

The United Nations World Summit on
Sustainable Development in South Africa a few months ago resulted
in a 65-page plan of implementation, in which more than a hundred
governments agreed to work together to protect the environment
and reduce poverty in the world. Scientists who participated in
the meeting felt that, although the role of science was not
included in the political summation of the meeting, the action
plan discusses the role of research collaboration with developing
countries. They also believed that science had improved its
position, since scientists from different disciplines and
organizations played a prominent role at the Johannesburg
meeting, unlike the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro ten years
earlier.

Another aspect of research and knowledge
policy that has been emphasized recently is the need for a
greater degree of integration between the sciences and
humanities, in order to bridge the gap between these two
cultures. As Economics Laureate Herbert A. Simon
writes in his essay "Creativity in the Arts and Sciences,"
increased knowledge of "the other culture" is important both to
individual creativity and the opportunities for citizens to form
opinions on important democratic decisions. The Renaissance man
stands out as an ideal here. And in this context, one can note
that through his choice of prize fields, Alfred Nobel points in
the same direction, with a combination of science, literature and
involvement in the fortunes of the world.

Honoured Laureates, after having received
your Prizes from His Majesty the King, you will soon become a
part of the history of the Nobel Prizes. But even earlier,
through your extraordinarily important contributions, you have
inscribed your names in the history of science and culture. To
use the words of Alfred Nobel, you have "conferred the greatest
benefit on mankind."